First Light, Last Light by Glen Sorestad

 

First Light, Last Light by Glen Sorestad

by Stephen Morrissey

 

First Light, Last Light

Glen Sorestad, 2025

Shadowpaw Press

Regina, Saskatchewan,

ISBN 978-1-998273-46-1

 

            In his eighty-eighth year Glen Sorestad continues to write new poems and has just published a new book of poetry, First Light, Last Light. The first section of the book, "The Human Touch", is comprised of poems in which Sorestad remembers people who were important to him; the second section, "Sunbeams and Shadows", is less defined by the past, it has an awareness of the natural world, mostly referring to birds. The whole book emphasizes the importance of the past as well as the importance of the natural world. It is a book of endings, fall to winter, day to night, and the people we've known and loved and who are now deceased; it is a book of the transience of life.

 

The first section of First Light, Last Light has many references to Sorestad's father, someone Sorestad often remembers; Sorestad recalls that his father drove a "1935 Ford", and that his father had a beautiful singing voice, a talent that Sorestad also shares; "My father had a great singing voice./ I have no memories of this of my own" but an elderly aunt has "conveyed/ this genealogical tidbit to me", and this reminds Sorestad that his memories of his father are of an older man, one "who grew/ increasingly taciturn and introspective/ as he neared the end of a life cut short...".

 

It is in the details that the past comes to life; in "The Whistler", Sorestad remembers that his father "loved to whistle." In "Honouring Our Fathers", Sorestad writes that he and his wife, Sonia, compared "notes about/ our long-departed fathers" and reflect on the similarities between the two men. Both of these fathers are remembered as men who valued their families, they were hard workers, they were good men. In another poem Sorestad writes, "I have always been aware of this:/ the missing are always missed." As time passes we may not miss these people as often as we once did, but missing someone, or feeling grief at losing them, does not end, it stays with us as long as we live. The word "missing" is poignant; "missing" suggests the hopeful possibility they might one day be found; of course, where they truly are is in our hearts. Sorestad writes,

 

                        Why do I keep writing these memories,

                        real or imagined, of my father, now gone

                        over six decades from my life?

                        .  .  .  .  . 

                        Is there anyone left alive with reason

                        to doubt whether my own recollections

                        bear even slight resemblance to the man?

                                                            "Gene Gifts", p. 27

 

In "Bulldozers" Sorestad reflects on the illusion of progress, "We inter our own history/ under the sham mound of progress". What is left of the past is ploughed under—"Every fallen log, every hillock—/ abandoned beaver dam,/ or forgotten Indigenous grave—/ levelled". Sorestad's feelings about the bulldozing of old homes, fields, nature despoiled, is also the destruction of our collective and individual memories, and poets are memory carriers, they remember the past and they keep the past alive in the stories, anecdotes, and details of what the past was like.

 

It is the second section of First Light, Last Light that really surprised me; these poems have a different quality to them than in the previous section; it is now the natural world that impresses itself on the poet. This section is mostly comprised of poems that refer to birds and there are also a few foxes that have been seen in the part of Saskatoon where Sorestad lives. There is a transformation manifested in nature; this is expressed in the emphasis on birds and the symbolism of birds. In Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant's A Dictionary of Symbols (1969) we read that birds are "symbols of the links between Heaven and Earth . . . Birds, symbols of the soul, play the role of Intermediaries between Heaven and Earth."

 

As symbols birds are messengers of the divine; birds are symbolic of freedom, spirituality, and a connection between the earth and the heavens. Sorestad's poem, "Red winged Blackbirds" stood out for me (and not only because it mentions my birthday in the first line—"the twenty-seventh of April") and describes walking in nature and seeing a red-winged blackbird, a bird I no longer see here in the east; Sorestad writes,

 

                        There is no avoiding the brazen birds,

 

                        should you be so inclined. They are political

                        poets of the bird world and like Milton Acorn

 

                        they shout love, whether you understand,

                        or appreciate, or agree with it or not.

 

Here are some of the birds referred to by Sorestad in this book:

 

                        Snowy owls

                        Crows

                        Waxwings

                        Blackbirds

                        Cooper's Hawks

                        Canada Geese

                        Catbirds

                        Robins

                        Chickadees

                        Swans

                        Juncos

                        Snow geese

                        Turkey vultures

                        Magpies

                        Catbirds

                        Bohemian Waxwing

                        Blue Jay

 

We are visited daily by these messengers of the divine. Take, for instance, "Crow Meditation"; upon seeing the first crow of the year Sorestad writes,

 

                        Is it confirmation of an expectation?

                        Or the assurance, here and now. Nature

                        has proclaimed again that all is well?

 

The crow is a bird that has a long memory, be careful not to offend a crow or the consequences will be long lasting, you might be subject to the crow aggressively flying at you, not for days or weeks, but for years to come; and they will recognize your face and distinguish between you and other people. Crows have the intelligence of a seven year old child and can be a delight to watch. One's relationship with crows is one in which we can learn something about ourselves; they can be predatory (I have watched a crow land in a neighbour's tree with a small dead squirrel in its claws), but there is much more to crows than this.

 

Sorestad writes that it is "Hard to Love a Crow", especially when the crow hunts younger birds; looking out at their new bird bath he writes, "I expect we both shared the same vision:// robins and sparrows, warbler and finches,/ chickadees and other songsters would arrive/ at our burbling flow to drink and to splash." But crows are clever and intelligent animals, crows are carnivores and cagey in their approach to finding the next meal. In "Corvid Hygiene" he writes,

 

                        Crow turns to the window,

                                    cocks its head at me

                                    and those dark eyes

                        seize mine for a moment.

                                    I'm positive Crow

                                    would like to say

                        something to me, something

                                    I'm not at all sure

                                    I want to hear.

 

Personally, I have observed crows and other birds for years and I always enjoy seeing crows soak food found at a nearby Chinese restaurant in our backyard bird bath. Crows are also known for leaving presents after their visits. One day, after visits by crows, I was pouring fresh water into the bird bath when I found an old Canadian penny beside the bird bath; I thought that was nice and then I looked at the penny more closely, it was almost completely rubbed smooth and the date on it was 1957, the year after my father died. It is probably of no great significance, but personally, I like to think that it is a meaningful coincidence—a synchronistic experience—and that it tells me we live in a meaningful universe. I feel that the crows had delivered to me a special gift—a personal gift from them—and it is a penny that I still possess.

 

There is also Sorestad's "Nordic spirit" present in his poems; by this I refer to ancestral qualities of self-reliance, an adherence to truth, love for the natural world, the importance of inner strength, and an unstated assumption of accepting things as they are. Glen Sorestad's heritage is Norwegian and he reminds me of the late Canadian poet George Johnston whose own poetry, including his translations of the Icelandic Sagas and poetry from the Faroe Islands, also had these Nordic qualities. Both poets discover in the everyday, the quotidian, a way to express what is important in life. Glen Sorestad's poems also remind me of the poems of the American poet William Stafford; Sorestad and Stafford have a similar sensibility; they are western poets and, one feels, they are closer to the essentials of poetry than is found in some poets of the big eastern cities.

 

For Glen Sorestad the first light is diminishing and the last light is on the horizon, but it is not a time of sadness; it is a time of love. This is not a sad or unhappy book, every poem affirms life and being alive; the past lives in our hearts but it also lives in memory. This is a book of memories and reflections on the past, they weave in and out of consciousness; it is also a book of the natural world, of a connection with nature. These are fall and winter poems, a time of reflection, a time of solitude. Do we agree with Beowulf, that "grief follows joy", or is it Chaucer that we resonate to when he writes in The Canterbury Tales, "But after wo I rede us to be merye"? I think Sorestad would choose the latter; however, a paradox of life is that you can be on both sides of an issue at the same time; but, overall, Glen Sorestad is on the side of life and creativity and continuing on life's journey no matter if it is the first light or the last light of day.

                                                                                      Stephen Morrissey

                                                                                       25 November 2025

Commentary: on the Epic of Gilgamesh

 

Part of the attraction of the Epic of Gilgamesh, at least for me, is that this is mankind's oldest literary work; the tablets containing the story of Gilgamesh were written approximately 4,000 years ago. Despite this, the text has a contemporary quality not necessarily found in other ancient texts. It is the story of a man's journey to self-knowledge and inner peace; of course, this "heroes' journey" is not exceptional in describing the journey, it is the traditional journey from unself-consciousness to being conscious of one's life; in its simplicity, directness, and its archetype of inner discovery, we can relate to Gilgamesh.

            In the Epic of Gilgamesh we can see ourselves, but to do so we might delete cultural referents and concentrate on the man who is Gilgamesh, a man who is us. We are contemporary people, living at least four thousand years after Gilgamesh lived or was invented, whether he is an invention, a fictional being, or an historical character; we can relate to his journey for it is also our journey, not embellished by belief or gods or being saved by someone else, and in this Gilgamesh, portrayed in mankind's oldest text, is contemporary. He is relevant at both ends of linear time -- alpha and omega, beginning and ending, A to Z, the apparent beginning and the end of the age in which we live -- we can identify with someone from the beginning of time. Ironic, isn't it? But it speaks to the enduring authenticity of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

            There is also the story itself, and what a contemporary story it is as Gilgamesh searches for the meaning of life, the ultimate meaning, the meaning that explains the purpose of life, that explains the purpose of his life. The meaning of life is to understand life better, to be a conscious person, to make sense of life, perhaps to even find some peace in life. Gilgamesh is an archetype for the person who searches for meaning; that's how I read his adventure, his story, his journey. This is one of the ways in which people today can learn from this epic, it is thoroughly contemporary even with its inclusion of gods and experiences impossible for people today to relate to except as literature, myth, and dream content. But at an archetypal and psychological level Gilgamesh and his story open a level of understanding of existence that is valuable for a contemporary audience. 

            Gilgamesh predates Homer's Odyssey and Iliad which date from 1,000 B.C. There is an oral tradition that helped preserve Homer's work but this doesn't seem to apply to the Epic of Gilgamesh, it is a written text. This reminds me of Grimm's fairy tales, collected by the Grimm brothers in the early half of the 19th Century; but research maintains that the stories collected by the Grimm brothers originated as far back as 4,000 years B.C. and I have also read that they are as old as 20,000 years, predating even Gilgamesh. They are archetypal and ageless, beyond time itself, as are all myths that work on a psychological level: don't take them literally but as a way to understand the eternal enigma of human existence.

            Gilgamesh seems to have missed out on an oral tradition as is found in both Homer and the Grimm fairy tales, but we have a written text for Gilgamesh. We know of the Epic of Gilgamesh only because cuneiform tablets containing the text of this literary work were discovered in the mid-1800s and later translated into English, this was fortuitous because even today very few people can actually read these tablets or speak the ancient language in which they are written. It is also a synchronistic discovery, Gilgamesh was discovered just when his story needed to be discovered. But is it possible that the Epic of Gilgamesh is older than 2,000 BC?  

            Another point is that the biblical story of the flood, coming after Gilgamesh was written, is also found in the Gilgamesh epic; apparently, whoever wrote the Book of Genesis, in which the flood story is included, knew or had heard of the Gilgamesh version of the flood. The biblical version of the flood is more or less a direct copy of that which is found in Gilgamesh. Was the Gilgamesh version of this story transmitted orally to the authors of the Old Testament?

            I am old fashioned, I believe in a didactic aspect to what I read; I like to learn things from what I read, especially things appertaining and contributing to my understanding of life. Whether it is F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby or Melville's Moby Dick, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, I am always aware of content and narrative, symbol and archetype that help me better understand both my own life and the life of others. Never underestimate this transcendent aspect of reading.